Jobs and Growth

Jonathan Ashworth Excerpts

Thursday 17th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

I shall make only a few brief points.

I thought that the Queen’s Speech was extraordinarily flimsy, given that it emanated from a party that is in its second year in government and has been out of power for 13 years. When we compare it with the greatest Queen’s Speeches of the Labour Government in their second year and, indeed, those of the Thatcher Government in their second year, it is apparent to us that the present Government are running out of steam after only two years.

There was nothing about jobs in the Queen’s Speech. As my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (David Miliband) demonstrated so eloquently in his speech, the Work programme is entirely unsatisfactory. It cannot possibly deal with the youth unemployment crisis. The Queen’s Speech should have been seen as an opportunity to put right the mistakes that the Chancellor had made in his Budget. I am glad that he has dug himself out of the hole of the churches tax, but I wish he would dig himself out of the hole of the pasty tax and the caravan tax, and, indeed, his £40,000 giveaway. I believe that the Prime Minister’s former speechwriter Ian Birrell described it as

“a missile into six years of Tory modernisation.”

I could not have put it better myself.

Unemployment in Leicester South has increased over the past 12 months. Although I welcome the drops in unemployment announced yesterday, I must tell Ministers that in Leicester South it fell not by 1%, but by one. If the Government do not produce measures to deal with the youth unemployment crisis soon, I fear for the future of many of the communities we represent.

The Chancellor expected growth of 2.5% this year, but we are now in a double-dip recession. Some of the contributions from Government Members were rather complacent on that front. Many people warned the Chancellor that a fiscal consolidation of this scale and pace, along with a collapse in demand and consumption, would lead to a recession. Indeed, the Business Secretary, when he was in opposition, gave him that very warning before the general election.

What are we given in the Queen’s Speech? We are given what appear to be proposals for the further erosion of workers’ rights. I must tell the Chancellor that downward pressure on workers’ rights will not lead to the growth in the economy that he wants. What a turnaround this is for the Business Secretary. He started his career co-authoring “The Red Paper on Scotland” with my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), but it appears that in the twilight of his career he will become the Twickenham strangler of rights at work.

Government Members have talked about trade and exports. I agree that the patterns of international trade are changing. As many Members will know, the city of Leicester, which I represent, has deep and extensive links with India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, and I want us to build on those links and to trade further. The hon. Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer) referred to food manufacturing, in which we in Leicester have expertise. We export British Asian food to Europe, to the middle east and, indeed, to India. However, I must tell Government Members that although the reports that I hear of UK Trade & Investment have improved, they are patchy at times.

We need more support for export finance in Leicester. It would be greatly to the advantage of the Business Secretary, when he and the Prime Minister go on trade missions to India, to take with him not the great and the good, but some of the small business people from Leicester who understand how to enter challenging markets in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Let me finish by simply saying that we have a Government who promised us growth and jobs; what they are delivering is recession and unemployment.